Talk about the PERFECT location for downtown accommodations! Marriott Center City is located smack dab in the middle of downtown Charlotte in walking distance to numerous restaurants, museums, and Charlotte nightlife. It was also walking distance to the Mint Museum where we had our reception. Heather Peo was our group coordinator and worked with me till the last minute ensuring all guests had correct accommodations and delivering goodie bags to their rooms. All the gusts found the location fantastic as well, nobody had to worry about transportation back to the hotel when they were ready to leave the reception as it was a block away!

The cake was about the only thing my fiancee was involved in :) That said, we went to 5 different tastings. Hands down, Hansel & Gretel's had the best cake. All of their cakes are pound cake and they are extremely moist and very rich. They have a variety of flavors and fillings and at $4/slice I found them very competitively priced. The best thing about their pricing is that the $4 is for any outside décor - from the simple dots to the elaborate basket-weave, every bride gets her favorite design and gets to stay within her budget. The tasting alone is worth a trip to Huntersville!

Catherine was wonderful to work with. We met for a consultation early on in the planning stages and she immediately offered to help me organize anything I needed outside of the catering to take some stress of of me. While the SC menu packages were amazing I did have some changes/substitutions that I wanted to make and they were extremely flexible. Catherine put up with my frequent calls and emails, and calmed me down in my mini "freak out" sessions. She knew how important presentation was to me (something that's also extremely important to SC) and actually brought me in to walk through their warehouse to gave me a choice of the serving pieces I'd like to use for my event. As far as the day of the wedding went, food was plentiful, nobody ever had to wait for a drink, and any leftovers were boxed up for us to take home. The catering experience was executed flawlessly.

WOW! I knew absolutely nothing about flowers and pretty much put my life in Deborah's hands as far as this was concerned. I couldn't have been any happier with the way things turned out. Deborah took all of my visions and turned them into something even more magnificent that I could have ever imagined. She is extremely creative and not only did the flowers, but worked with my other vendors to ensure that the reception was set up in a way that would enhance the beauty of her work and draw everything together. I have had guests ask for her details not only to use her for their own events, but simply just to thank her for making my day even more beautiful.

Rebecca is absolutely fantastic. My husband and I wanted to have a ceremony that was a little more on the spiritual side than religious, as neither of us grew up in very religious households. We met with Rebecca for a consultation and I knew in the first 5 minutes that she was our gal! She is very down to earth and seemed to know exactly what we were thinking. A few months before the ceremony she provided us with a very detailed ceremony and was open to anything we wanted to change, which was very little! Rebecca also does marriage counseling for couples, which we found very useful.

Rose is actually the aunt of a friend of mine. Rose is a full-time Mary Kay consultant and is VERY good at her job. She is also a hopeless romantic and absolutely loves weddings. Rose and I met months before the wedding for a consultation and she asked many questions about my colors, the bridesmaids dresses, the flowers, etc. From there she did two separate palates on either side of my face to test different colors. On my wedding day she drove over 25 miles to come to my home to do my make-up. It really took a lot of stress off not to have to leave the house and to be able to get ready in the comfort of my own home. To top it off, she left me with sample-size items of the items we used to make sure I got through the rest of the day as beautiful as when she left me. Her prices, in my opinion, are unbeatable.

In North Carolina it appears that The Men's Wearhouse has a monopoly on tuxedo rentals - I couldn't find any other place that wasn't affiliated with them! However, my husband does shop there on a regular basis so we knew the quality and customer service was very good. All tuxes arrived on time and we didn't have a problem with having three different pick-up locations. The staff was extremely friendly and knowledgeable of their offerings. I'd say the only thing that we didn't like was the lack of selection, and since we couldn't find another vendor our options were a little limited.

This was a very interesting vendor relationship - I have yet to meet Dawn, or even speak to her on the phone! Dawn was recommended by a friend and does all of her work via email from her home in New Jersey. I had a vision of what I wanted my invitations to look like but couldn't find the colors in the style I wanted anywhere. Aside from that, the style (pocket invite) I wanted was extremely expensive. I reached out to Dawn who sent me about a dozen layouts of not only invitations, but monograms as well based on the info I had provided her. Once we picked the one we liked, she sent us an actual mock-up of the invitation to approve. It was great to actually hold the invitation in our hands to see how it felt, the weight of the paper, the actual colors before spending all this money. The invitations were one of my favorite parts of the wedding. Even better - using Dawn allowed me to have the style I wanted, and she was less than 50% of the price of going through a stationery company!

Vicky was there the day I went in to try on my dress for the first time. She was working with another bride who had come in for a fitting. When the dress went on, the bride was close to tears, and Vicky looked like a proud mother. Though the dress looked amazing to me, Vicky noted a couple minor things she wanted to change to achieve absolute perfection. I knew I wanted her to work with me, to make me look and feel how the other bride was feeling. Her prices were also EXTREMELY reasonable! She is not an employee of The Lily Rose but is in there 2-3 days a week.

I have nothing but good things to say about the ladies of The Lily Rose. I wouldn't have thought about venturing up to Lake Norman to look around, but I had already found the dress I wanted and they had it at the best price in the market. So, they won my business! Not only did they help me with my dress but they provided me with the most honest opinions and helped me pick out the most perfect pair of shoes. Their seamstress Vicky did a flawless job with alterations. Every trip made the 20 miles north was an absolute pleasure.